“If you abstract an image you open more room for the unrepresentable and are able to involve the viewer more.” – Stefan Sagmeister (TED ’04)

But, does it really work?

All signs point to: NO!

I’m flying to Vancouver tomorrow for work and needed some new stuff to read on the plane, so I placed my order at around 12:15AM last night (Thursday) and expected to have my books today (paying $10 over AMZN’s price!) as alluded to here: “Same Day in Manhattan”

But… that wasn’t to be. The books shipped today alright, but their ‘If you place your order before 11AM EST, you’ll get your books by 7PM EST’ statement isn’t completely true, I suppose — and both books were marked ‘Usually ships in 24 hours!’

If you can’t provide what you advertise so proudly, why even bother?

technorati tags:bn.com, barnesandnoble, same_day_delivery, shipping, manhattan

Blogged with Flock

Locked in a tincan for 15 hours with 250+ whiny Indians and children, anyone would go mad.

But not me. It’s been a couple of days since I got back from my whirlwind 10 day trip back home.

First, the flight. Continental’s somewhat old (~two year old?) non-stop service to Delhi from Newark is, in one word, _fabulous_. The flight attendants are friendly, and did a great job of keeping people (especially kids) happy on the long (13+ hours eastbound and 15+ westbound) flight. The longest I’ve done before has been trans-atlantic 8 hour flights, and I did get somewhat bored on my way in but got around to catching up on some reading (Guns, Germs, And Steel – look for a review soon!). On my way out, I got upgraded to BusinessFirst due to Elite status and the fact that BusinessFirst was almost empty.

(Note to self: Fly weekend nights to avoid those Platinum Elite business travelers bumping me for upgrades!).

Overall, a very positive experience and I intend to fly Continental / SkyTeam for my international needs as often as I can.

Of course, none of these flights are truly uneventful, and this one was no exception. A few hours into our flight to Delhi, while I was trying hard to fall asleep in the cattle class seat some guy in the row behind me tapped me on the shoulder and the following conversation ensued:

Him: “Excuse me, kya aap mujhe mera bag de sakte hain uppar se?”
(Translation: Can you hand me my bag from the overhead bin?)

Me: <sputter><choke> <Looks at him, through the crack between our seat rows with sleepy eyes>

Him: “Yeh mere saath waali seat par gorey bhai sahab so rahe hain… aur mein inhe disturb nahi karna chahta”
(Translation: The white guy on the aisle seat is sleeping, and I don’t want to disturb him)

Me: . o O ( I’m trying to sleep too? ) Outloud: “Uhh… sure.”

And, I handed him the bag…

The trip itself was amazing. One of the biggest reasons I flew the non-stop flight was because I had a very limited amount of time, and no trip back home is ever long enough! This time around I went for the wedding of one of my best friend’s from high school and it was completely worthwhile.

For anyone looking to do a quick trip to India from the East Coast, the Continental flight is highly recommended. American Airlines also runs a non-stop flight from Chicago, but I’ve never flown on that flight so I can’t vouch for it!

technorati tags:Continental Airlines, nonstop, New Delhi, New York

For those that have been under a rock all day:

[via TUAW]